Remada, a small village about 110 km from Sambalpur in western Orissa, stands out as an oasis of peace and amity where Muslims traditionally celebrate the "Rath Yatra" (car festival) of Lord Jagannath and Hindus take part in joy.

The village ... has a population of about 1,000, a majority of whom are Gond tribals and barely 15 families are Muslims. The village head Mohammad Jamiullah Khan, though a Muslim, plays a key role in both patronising the festival and taking active part in the Lord's rituals.

According to Kumar Hasan, a resident of Remada, who is a poet and author of several books, the car festival was started nearly a century ago by the late Mohammad Waras and has been continuing since then. Jamiullah added a new colour to it in 1983 when he volunteered to perform the important "Chherapahanra" (cleansing of the chariot with a broom), a ritual done by the Gajapati king in Puri, he added.

There are nearly 100 Muslim families residing in the area, including the adjoining villages who are said to be descendants of a group of musclemen, whom the third king of Sambalpur Balabhadra Sai, had brought as his bodyguards ... Another factor which has established close relations between the two communities is the academic excellence of persons like Mohammad Khalil, who authored many plays on Hindu mythological subjects and was a lyricist, and the late Maulana Mustaqim Khan, who was respected as a "pandit" in the area for his knowledge of Hindu scriptures and palmistry.